The Presidents Budget Proposal: An Obamination of Progressive Profligacy

By
Arnold Ahlert

http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
In one of the most daunting "present" votes of his entire political career, president Obama had demonstrated that he is completely unserious about getting both the federal deficit and the federal debt under control. His proposal of $1.1 trillion dollars in deficit reduction over a ten year period makes a complete mockery of reality: the deficit this year alone is $1.67 trillion. Mr. Obama's "solution" would reduce it to $1.56 trillion. To put it in a perspective even progressives can understand, that is akin to bailing out the flooded staterooms of the Titanic  with a thimble  while telling everyone not to worry about the ship sinking.

Does anyone still remember when we measured deficit spending with the word "billions" instead of trillions? Government spending has literally doubled in the last ten years  from $1.9 trillion in 2001 to this proposed "austerity budget" of $3.7 trillion in 2011  and yet progressives are still talking about "devastating cuts" to one program or another. Republicans? So far, the biggest thing they've come up with is $100 billion in cuts for the current year. You know what that is?

A bigger thimble.

Government is morbidly obese. Not chunky, not fat, morbidly obese. Anyone who tells you otherwise is an utter liar. Anyone who tells you that we can't cut ten percent or more of everything  without missing a beat  is a complete fraud.

We are a pivotal moment in this country, one where we're about to find out if the whiners whose entire lives revolve around sucking the government teat, outnumber those who provide the cow. If that is the case, we're through as a nation. Not floundering, not mucking about, not flailing away.

Through.

The Keystone Keynesians tried it their way. They "stimulated" us into a "recovery" in which progressive "expert" after progressive "expert" remains baffled by the "unexpected results" of chronic unemployment, rising prices and dismal growth. Their steadfast determination to keep doing that which has failed demonstrates nothing more than the bankruptcy of an ideologically incapable of dealing with reality. Their contention that government isn't spending enough on whatever pet project they deem "crucial" is obscene.

I'll tell you right now who the next president will be. He will be the one man with enough courage to take on the Sacred Cows, the Third Rail of Politics or whatever else you want to call the budget-crushing entitlements known as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. He'll be the man who can successfully convince Americans that the party is over, and that their unseemly whining about "their" Social Security or "their" medical benefits is nothing less than immoral. You want Soc Sec because "you paid into it your whole working career?" Fine. Take every cent you've contributed, plus the 2% compound interest rate most Americans were willing to settle for in leiu of privatizing the system, and that's it. Not a penny more, because once you cross that threshold, it's not Soc Sec anymore.

It's welfare  period.

And therein lies the crux of the problem. We've raised several million Americans who not only believe you can get blood from a stone, but that they're entitled to that blood. And they have plenty of allies in Congress and the White House more than willing to enable that which is nothing more than selfishness and greed, even as it's called "compassion" and "social justice."

Are those people a majority of the electorate? If they are, get ready for Third World living. Get ready for the crony capitalists at the top to keep currying government favor to protect themselves, just like GE, GM and Goldman Sachs have done. And get ready for the teeming entitlement crowd at the bottom to be told that government coercion, aka socialist/marxist progressivism, is the only way to extract enough money from the system to satisfy their needs. The people in between, the real capitalists and the real working men and women who forge their way through the world without a government fix?

An endangered species heading for extinction.

Any hope of sanity lies in the Republican House. It is a sanity which requires something completely inimical to a politician's instinct, as in putting the good of the nation above one's chances for re-election. If such a risk is daunting, consider the alternative: being forever known as people who promised the nation they would get government spending under control, but chose to punt in an orgy of self-preservation instead. The people who kicked the can down the road, even as they knew for certain they were running out of road.

And Republicans shouldn't kid themselves for a nano-second. The entitlement uber alles crowd and their Democrat/media enablers cannot be won over, any more than a drunk can be talked into going sober. Republicans must proceed based on the premise that the takers are still a minority of Americans. If they are not, the battle is already lost. Those of us who still believe this country can be saved will be watching. Not what you say, but what you do. A hundred billion dollars in savings is chicken feed, and chicken feed is for chickens. Stop patting yourselves on the back and get to work promoting serious cuts.

You'll either be rewarded for your success in 2012  or it probably won't make the slightest difference who's running the country after that if you fail.

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